The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency

by John Dickerson

It is a tough job, taking on the feelings, aspirations, and needs of people who didn’t vote for you, but when leaders don’t send a signal to all segments of the population, it creates the building blocks for upheaval. “Demand for recognition of one’s identity is a master concept that unifies much of what is going on in world politics today,” writes the Stanford political scientist Francis Fukuyama. Political leaders mobilize “followers around the perception that the group’s dignity had been affronted, disparaged, or otherwise disregarded. This resentment engenders demands for public recognition of the dignity of the group in question. A humiliated group seeking restitution of its dignity carries far more emotional weight than people simply pursuing their economic advantage.”23